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Alexandria City Council weighs deep budget cuts

No dispatcher or part-time community service officer for the police department.

A tree removal and replacement program cut nearly in half.

Health insurance costs tightened in every department to reflect a zero percent increase.

Those are just some of the budget-cutting strategies the Alexandria City Council is proposing to make to deal with cuts to the market value homestead credit (MVHC) - reimbursements the state pays to cities for providing property tax relief for those with low incomes.

Based on what's been happening at the state Legislature, the city expects that the MVHC program will be eliminated.

At its meeting Monday night, the council reviewed how it will make up for a loss of all of its MVHC reimbursement - about $235,000.

Al Edenloff is the news and opinion page editor for the Echo Press. He was born in Alexandria and lived most of his childhood in Parkers Prairie. He graduated with honors from Moorhead State University with a degree in mass communications, print journalism. He interned at the Echo Press in the summer of 1983 and was hired a year later as a sports reporter. He also worked as a news reporter/photographer. Al is a four-time winner of the Minnesota Newspaper Association's Herman Roe Award, which honors excellence in editorial writing.